Over lunch the other day, a friend sighed, "I'm torn between caring and not caring." As we were discussing, there is JUST.SO.MUCH. involved in being a responsible, caring person. Combine our personal challenges with the constant bombardment of bad/good/BREAKING news...and it's easy to see how someone could be torn.

What should we really get upset about? When should we take the time to do more than click a "like" button on Facebook? When do we truly care, about what? How do we pick our battles? What really matters to us?

Well, I can't speak for all women, everywhere...but...

I care about a woman's reproductive rights. I care deeply. And, turns out my friend does too. She got fire in her eye and passion in her voice when remembering the battles and injustices of the past. Look, regardless of how you feel about abortion (Yep, we're going there...), most people are "pro-life." However, that should include the life of the potential mother as well. Things have gotten so crazy lately, we're back to fighting over contraception. And, some poor, ignorant souls posting on Facebook actually believe birth control pills cause abortions.

The hard cold fact is that women are (still) the ones who bear the brunt of responsibility for birth control and child-rearing. And, we're the ones who put our bodies on the line, literally. If a man could get pregnant, we'd have every form of birth control (and yes, abortificants) right up there by the breath mints and chewing gum at the local mini-mart. (Oh, and they'd all be covered by most insurance, just like Viagra is today.) But, men can't get pregnant; however, they feel entitled to control women (yes, still, in 2012). Don't believe me? Check out what's going at the state level.

...over all, the pattern has been retrograde: humiliating obstacles to abortions, cuts in family-planning programs, and limits on comprehensive sex education in schools.

If you're a young woman living in Texas, for example, you'll very likely receive little to no sex education in school (Why, that's dirty! Go pray, girl!); can't obtain any kind of family planning (Texas cut funding by 66% (1); and will be subjected to rape (well, I'd call it that, as do many others) if you go for an abortion.

Planned parenthood is much better than unplanned. And, Ronald Reagan apparently agreed with me. He didn't have any problem funding the group.

(1) In case you didn't follow that link, this is important. "Perry and lawmakers curtailed funding for Planned Parenthood earlier this year by cutting the state's family planning budget by nearly 66 percent, from $111.5 million last biennium to $37.9 million in the next two years. In Texas, these state-funded family planning services have included birth control, STD testing, breast cancer exams, and pap smears that screen for HPV, the virus that can lead to cervical cancer — but not abortions."